The Yoga of Christianity, An Easter Contemplation

The unity of the human race dictated by the global village we anxiously inhabit –
while still looking for a safer place to settle – is a unity that far transcends the sexual attraction of opposites. It is rather a unity that issues from a profound identity that needs urgently to be understood.
~ Marion Woodman, eminent Jungian therapist

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If Jesus preached that the Kingdom of Heaven lies within each of us, how is it that two thousand years later many Christians are still searching for an external Messiah? We arrive into this world replete with bodies harboring an enormous drive for knowledge and creativity. Denying these innate impulses over time renders us impotent to inspiration and we languish, afraid we have lost our connection to the divine. What might be the genesis of this belief?

In The Four Agreements, Miguel Ruiz reflects on how our childhood need for acceptance from parents, authority figures and peers tends to overshadow our dreams. Once we realize this is fairly endemic to all children, however, we can utilize these agreements to move us through fear of non-acceptance into a world of possibilities, grounding us into an inner sanctum of authenticity:

1. Be impeccable with your word.
2. Don’t take anything personally.
3. Don’t make assumptions.
4. Always do your best.

As we throw off layer upon layer of familial and cultural conditioning, we evoke new depths of awareness. We transcend much of the background mental chatter, the voices in our head that keep us small and self doubting. The more we practice, the further we downshift into our bodies and away from feelings of alienation.

When Jesus was crucified and resurrected, scriptures note that he revealed himself to his disciples eating, of all things, fish and honey. In pre-Christian times, fish was only allowed to be eaten by priests during rituals devoted to the goddess Atargatis, in the belief that they represented her body (Wikipedia). Wouldn’t this seemingly bizarre act by their Master (and later to be replicated as sacrament in many churches) represent that holy teachings or wisdom needed to be internalized, that spirit required ingestion, digestion and embodiment, just so? 

To understand concepts in the mind is profound. To make manifest in flesh allows one to trust, to walk the talk, to encounter life on its own terms in this wondrous physical universe. Most of all perhaps, it helps us manage the quaking fear of existence, itself.

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Identity would seem to be the garment with which one covers the nakedness
of the self; in which case, it is best that the garment be loose, a little like the
robes of the desert, through which one’s nakedness can always be felt,
and sometimes discerned. This trust in one’s nakedness is all that gives
one the power to change one’s robes.
– James Baldwin

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bj image: Keokea trestle